


Late in June

by Keatulie



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Allegorical Character, M/M, Metaphors, Post-Book 9: Sent i november | Moominvalley in November, Post-Canon, Reunions, Time Skips, is not actually a tag so I'm making it so, it's been a few years they're about 22/1 now!, medium burn. not a slow not really a quick either., one of those teens-but-not-really fics. PG.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25052983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keatulie/pseuds/Keatulie
Summary: As one starts to get older, one discovers how easy it can be to fall out of touch with even their dearest of friends. The slightest mistake and they could slip between your fingers like sand. When Moomintroll returns home from the island to find Snufkin gone, he decides to leave memories of the valley behind and set out on his own for a while.Both go along on their separate travels, both to forget, but something between them won't let them stay apart.
Relationships: Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	1. Sailor's Charm

Moomintroll had been at sea for thirteen months. Seven, if one didn't count hibernation. He crossed the days off on his weather-worn calendar, a parting gift from Mamma that she'd brought back from the lighthouse. When the new year arrived he'd simply started all over. It was long out of date to begin with; his mother had made sure to scribble new ones in its margins to keep him on track, while Moomintroll helped with the spelling. She could never get the hang of Wednesdays.

‘Is that right?’ she’d asked in the middle, squinting down at the pad. Moomintroll glanced vaguely over his shoulder from his packing to see what she’d written.

‘No,’ he’d said gently. ‘There are two “Ds”.’ And he pointed to somewhere at the beginning, where she squeezed an extra letter on top.

‘Really,’ said Mamma, furrowing her brow seriously. ‘That doesn’t look right now at all.’

Moomintroll had looked again and realised she’d written out the word “Wheᵈnsday”.

‘There’s no “H” in it, that’s why,’ he corrected. His mother twisted the cap of her pen a bit self-consciously. "Febyuwree" didn't look right either, but he wouldn't point that out for the world to her.

‘I’d always thought they meant “when,” as in “when is the day," she'd defended, scribbling it out. 'What do you suppose a "wednes" is?'

Moomintroll had had no answer to that, so he'd shrugged. He remembered how Moominmamma shook her head as if she’d carted a heavy load on her shoulders and asked: ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to follow words that you know?’

‘I like the challenge,’ he'd replied, proudly. Moomintroll had believed that if he’d consulted something as necessary as a calendar for his words daily, he’d be a master of a new language by the year’s end. He had two down pat already. One should always be keen to take up new skills when starting afresh.

As it happened, things hadn’t quite worked out that way. With so many other things to be responsible for, dizzying his head with more languages was not at the top of his list. There was no-one to man the helm when he was tired, or mind that he didn’t drift further and further out into the middle of the Earth for good and stick himself there. As well as that, the boat needed maintaining, clouds needed watching, while Moomintroll kept focus on the dinky cream radio, which desperately caught snippets of talk in the air about the weather. At least that meant there was less time to think about anything else.

Travelling alone had been a startling wake-up call for a young buck of a moomin. His glorious thoughts of wide-open waters with no destination in mind were soon deluged with realities of winds that bit and fish who didn’t. There were times when he was grateful, those early days being many.

Thank the booble for his seclusion when, while battling an empty stomach, Moomintroll had fought with a stubborn sea-trout and lost, leaving him flopping down as helplessly as he’d hoped his dinner would on the deck, and begging for Ahto to show him a kindness. Only the herring gulls had been there to jeer in passing.

About a year on, he was quite adept at the sea-faring life, if he did say so himself - which he did, frequently. His repair-work improved considerably. Why, come the time he landed again he could build himself a new place in a day, if he so wanted. Moomintroll cast his nets every morning and brought in plenty food for one, and for others at the ports he stopped at once in a while.

Even the tough life hadn't managed to callus that bleeding heart of his; the excess catch was most often given away to hungry folk, or down-and-out merchants to sell. It usually went well, though some did wrinkle their snouts in suspicion. Not all places were as kind as his dear little valley. That discovery had been worse than any of his sailing woes.

Once, he'd taken merely a step onto the jetty of a new town before sending a few passersby fainting, and the entire dock turned their piercing eyes on him. It was much later, when he was pulling on his night-things, that Moomintroll registered how they'd all been fully clothed.

And the palaver over his food, would you believe it! Back home the neighbours were glad of a pick from the garden. They helped one another through droughts and disease.

At best, in these others, they'd look at him like his head had turned into a trout, or attempt to press coins into his paws. At worst, they cried poison, chased him off, or threatened police on him. How sad and strange their lives must be.

Anchoring by a pleasant town brought such fun to his day. He could mingle with locals as he stocked up his goods, travel down to public houses, and even stay overnight if he'd had the means.

Moomintroll rarely came into any money, being unable to accept it for his fish. Mamma had tucked some away for a rainy-day when he'd left but, well - he wasn't a moomin of moderation.

When October and later his birthday rolled around, Moomintroll had treated himself to a whole täytekakku and fed strawberry pieces to the fry begging underneath the docks. He had only been gone for a month. And there were other nice foods, and trinkets, and interesting clothing in these bigger towns. All very essential, he told himself. One doesn't return from a voyage without gifts, now. 

What he did sell instead was his art, though he'd usually make just enough back to replenish supplies. He was a painter - oils, preferably, but being thin on storage and time, he'd settled for watercolours, and the best of the bunch still cost a pretty penny. They had to be. Bit of a perfectionist, he supposed.

On the odd day that he had some left over, Moomintroll swapped out his rickety boat for a bed on dry land. My, was that heaven: river-washed bed sheets (with _scented powders_!) that would reach from his ears to his toe tips, and then some; someone else there to cook breakfast; and whatever the weather, it didn't matter a jot. The safety for once was not his responsibility.

But soon enough he’d be away again, just himself and the mottled old bedding that smelt comfortingly of fish to sleep under at night. Such was the life of a lonesome sailor.

~ ✾ ~

One gentle morning, a burning mid-autumn sunrise spilled over Moomintroll's bunk on the pilothouse floor. _Sailor's warning_ , he reminded himself stepping out from the blankets (as he had learnt some things, after all), and sure enough, that afternoon while he was brewing his supper, a fierce-looking storm rolled in from the west. The waters grew choppy and stark grey to match the sky, and the sea was then shrouded by the dismal blanket knitted of rain clouds.

Moomintroll pulled down the sails and fit himself into his bright yellow life-jacket. The pot was forgotten. Beasts like himself were rather buoyant to begin with, though it never hurt to keep safe.

There was no thunder yet, only gales and rain. The boat was buffeted by the chilling wind, jostling them around like tiny figures in a snowdome. Moomintroll held fast. He was no stranger to sea storms, but he did keep a sensible anxiety at the forefront of his mind.

He did - just a bit, if he were to think about it too long - have a touch of the aquaphobia there on occasion. Ironical, really, when he'd always loved spending time in it. The trouble with the sea, you see, is that it's so very large, and one is so very small, even when one is moomin. It never did good to act cocky with the contrarian nature of the ocean, or indeed any part of the Earth. To appease the winds, for example, one must instead always slow themselves down so that it's as though you weren't there, sneaking along undetected like a mouse dodging a sleeping cat. Then they may just leave you be.

The strikes came just then. Moomintroll clamped his sou'wester around his head and dared to peek underneath the brim; forks of lightning tore through the storm clouds and crashed into the roiling waves. One broke off from the horde and turned back on itself, up, and out past the horizon. It moved with purpose and danced the murky line of the sky and the sea, not at all as erratic as the rest of them.

 _A lightning spirit_ , he thought.

In his distraction a swell sneaked up from behind and crashed overhead. It pinned him to the floor longer than he liked and for a moment Moomintroll felt very helpless. His saucepan went overboard in the confusion. He didn't notice for the raindrops whipping his face.

Moomintroll sorely blinked the saltwater out and shook himself down as best he was able in the torrent. None had reached his lungs but he still felt them seize in fear. He groped blindly one-pawed for the mast, heaving, looping his arm around the centre and bracing himself as another wave struck the side of his boat and pooled into the deck. His claws unsheathed and hooked the roughened wood for balance. Underneath, the water itched at his paw pads, threatening to shake it.

Then something very peculiar happened: Moomintroll could still hear the rain pounding hard on the planks and cloth, but his fur and his hat were completely spared. There was a smoky haze hanging over his eyes from the flattened hairs, though he could definitely see, against the blackened sky, something bright and enormous hanging directly above him.

Even in the bleary downpour, two vast, pale wings cut through the dark, sharp as anything, and an eerie cry shot back at the thunder. He knew about red suns, and lucky knots, and the rituals one performed at sea - and he knew what this was, too. Moomintroll had encountered an albatross.

He had no idea that they were so grand, never having met one before, and all he could think to do was stare numbly ahead with the rain filling his eyes. Everything smeared together like he was standing within one of his watercolours.

Just before it rose into the clouds and faded from view, Moomintroll stood and whispered his thanks to the creature. He hoped that was gratitude enough. In awe he found strength in his footing again, and stumbled wearily toward safety.

Thoroughly cold and sodden right to the skin, Moomintroll hurled himself into the pilothouse and collapsed on top of the bench. Dry. Solid, grounded. His paws were too jumpy to manage the hurricane lamp, so he lay in the dark and listened to the thunder travel. A bolt set the whole room alight with a blue flash, and the knots in the ceiling swirled; Moomintroll was unsure if it was him or the boat that was spinning.

It was on nights like this that one bitterly wished for someone to talk to, or simply to hold. For all the freedom and independence that travelling gave, it was a rather sombre affair at times. It was the first in a long while that Moomintroll regretted not having his mother there along with him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to boat people I am a landlubber and I don't know how they work.  
> it's ok mamma's fine I realise that ending sentence sounds very ominous. she's just at home, you'll see.


	2. The Departure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was only supposed to be a quick backstory as to why moomin went sailing oops.  
> a lot of the beginning refs moominpappa at sea so knowing that helps, but it's not a huge thing!

It had been a month after they'd all awoken from their long hibernation when Moominmamma suddenly proposed leaving the island. They were together at the dinner table, eating their umpteenth helping of mackerel, when she'd finally spoken up at a lull in the conversation. Having slept on what had transpired the past year, both she and Moomintroll - who was the first to say something - could finally admit that they were no longer happy so far from their valley.

Mamma had tried. She looked for its beauty, as she always did; admiring its rugged carpet of spiny wildflowers clinging to the ground in spite, how the bracing winds kept one on their toes and took hours off the washing in the mornings (when it didn't take the washing).

Moomintroll had settled in, too, until he realised that his fun came from imagining what might be, instead of what was: if those red ants were great, ghastly beasts to scoop a frightened creature from, or if those rock pools held secret treasures washed in from the sea-bed. On top of that, though he loved his family dearly, one does need another to talk to now and then, and he certainly wasn't going to do that from miles into the sea.

Little My was partial to the idea as well. She'd grown bored with the small beasts who had wisened up to her pranks, and lost interest in the mermaids' insipid old gossip. The Keeper was a fun little fellow, and he'd known such bawdy tunes once he'd crawled out of his hermit shell. He and Little My would play together in the cupola of the lighthouse, while the moomins (excepting Mamma, who occasionally hummed along) would pretend not to hear, but still it wasn't enough to entertain her.

It seemed as if they'd shared the same dreams overwinter, of lofty blue houses with welcoming stove-fires; people who'd pass by the end of the garden, coming in to shake off the dew and the cobwebs; plants that would scatter wherever they pleased without fear. They were to set sail home, their true home, when the weather next permitted it.

Moominpappa had never been so quiet in his life as he was that night. He said not a word the whole meal through, nodding passively when the subject was broached, but he wasn't at all sad. There was new breath of life in him since the lamp's light returned that nothing could snuff. He listened intently without interruption, not even to agree or disagree. The rest had a Thought as to why, but no-one dared say it.

And so, on the next mild day in the new spring season, Moomintroll and his mother set about the Adventure and polished her up for another voyage, for the winter hadn't been so kind to their boat.

How lucky they'd been to have sheltered in the lighthouse, they thought, looking over the dents in her hull, the debris that littered the beach, and the cracks in the trees that seemed to hold their wounds with whatever branches were left. Not to mention the fright of shifting a piece of driftwood and having a bleached skull roll out from its holes. Moomintroll would never take winter in the valley for granted again.

Little My helped, too, though she wouldn't be boarding. She asserted instead that she'd box herself up in a water-tight crate and send herself off to startle some fishermen, then perhaps float to the valley at her own leisure. There were plenty of rations for a mymble her size to be stocked along in it at Mamma's insistence, though Moomintroll said she could live like a cockroach if needed. Little My was flattered.

They had such fun with the boat: mixing the paints together and getting their thinning coats a mess, threatening each other with the ends of their brushes and pushing someone into the sea-foam. It was the first they'd played properly in goodness knows how long. A silliness that had so sorely been missed throughout autumn. They'd worked for a week with what they could find and enjoyed every minute.

Even so, their Thought was confirmed the day before they were due to leave. Pappa had chosen to stay on the island.

'Not forever, of course,' he was certain to add, after gathering them outside the entrance. 'You'll see me again, the Keeper has boats. I couldn't very well leave you, but for now I should stay. You understand it, don't you?'

It was only when the family gave little resistance to his announcement that the wind seemed to drop from his sails for once. He secretly hadn't wanted them to understand, and when there was no outcry, no pleading, then Pappa simply had nothing more to say, so he didn't.

Moomintroll was privately relieved, a feeling compounded by guilt in how easy it came. It wasn't as though he didn't like his father - in many ways, he respected him, but in others, that reverence was shaken. It was awfully sad when one grew old enough to see their parents the same as everyone else did.

In the evening, Mamma had taken him to the end of her garden and asked, civilly enough, why it was. Moomintroll and Little My eavesdropped from the cave mouth, as for once their voices were so calm that they had to strain to listen.

He'd claimed to feel a duty toward the lighthouse's Keeper, to share his company in what little time the gentleman had left. He was very indebted for what he had given him and took great pride in tending the island and its inhabitants. Who inherited that burden was of no concern to him. Pappa only thought of his happiness here.

'He's lovesick,' Little My had said the next morning. 'And sickening it is. Don't be surprised if when we hear from him next he's married the rotten island.'

A year ago, Moomintroll would have hushed her, argued his side, and thrown the bones he was picking at her for her rudeness. Instead, he took another mouthful and bitterly snorted. Whatever he saw there, the rest of them couldn't. The island was never theirs to own. They'd come as guests who'd so generously been accommodated over winter, and anything else would be to over stay their welcome. One knows when one isn't wanted. Still, Pappa adored it, and that was his problem and his alone.

Later that day, somewhere around noon, a perfect wind had got up and set a course for the valley. So appropriate and fierce of a wind it was, that Moomintroll had sworn there was a sense of resentment, that it seemed to say, "well! if you're going, then go. Off with you!"

Mamma did cry just a little when they pulled in the rope, but Moomintroll thought she hadn't looked so light in months. They'd both said their goodbyes to Pappa and Little My, waving until he was just a bright spot of lichen on the shoreline rocks, and Little My not visible at all. The Keeper hung his yellow hat out of the window, and it too disappeared, until the only colour around them was dozens of blues.

It had taken a slight longer to return than the first trip had; the winds had decided to fall in again once they lost sight of the island. Moomintroll hadn't spent so much alone with his mother since he was small, and found that at some point he'd grown into an equal without knowing it. She could be extraordinarily candid about things, and he'd even managed to wrangle a few sea-faring tales of her own out of her on still, gloomy nights, to her bashfulness.

'But you didn't _steal_ ,' he'd assured once, scandalised, in the middle of one. Mamma placed a paw to her rosy cheek and wouldn't meet his eye, fussing with the clasp of her handbag.

'Oh, but I did,' she'd replied with a smile. 'But you mustn't think badly of me. We just wanted to play a joke. That Mymbleman was all talk, I didn't think he'd really go out and find one for me. Well, when I saw the ads in the papers I just panicked and took it back to the Oxtra. How was I to know he'd stolen that ring to begin with?'

'Think badly!' he'd echoed, laughing in shock. 'My mother; the fearsome pirate and heart-breaker.' He poured out more condensed milk into their mugs and asked: 'What became of it, then?'

'I think the Joxter must have it now,' Mamma mused to herself. 'Or he did at the time. Probably went and fell into the paws of another Mymble in the end.'

They made a marvellous team: one kept watch by the rudder while the other rested; both prepared the fish (she'd a terrible cast, but the best luck in catches and was certainly the better cook), and both tended the cuttings that Mamma had taken along with them. Oh, they quarrelled occasionally and got at each other, who wouldn't when squeezed on a boat for hours like sardines, though it often felt more like two peas in a pod.

~ ✾ ~

Moomintroll and his mother had arrived at the lovely old landing stage right on top of Midsummer's Eve. Someone had painted it brown and fixed the farthest post that wobbled. There was a new footpath marked out from the beach to the cave, and the apple tree to the north-east overlooking the cliff had died and been felled. What one could miss in such a short time away.

A bonfire was already built at the base of the mountains, its towering frame quite visible from so far down the coast, and the still June air warmed their dampened fur and heightened the brine smell. They wondered if Little My may have beaten them to it, or if she was celebrating her birthday by tussling with spurdogs.

The creatures around it, some old, and some new, lit up as bright as the wood that was burning by the time they'd reached the festivities. Sniff and his parents had journeyed down for the day and were all overjoyed to see each other again. Those who didn't recognise them still joined the cheer in happy participation, as their friends celebrated the family's return - or at least half of it. 

One of the new faces, a young fair-haired whomper with an over-sized coat, practically pounced at Moominmamma on sight and clung to her arms like they'd always known one another. Toft had been staying at Moominhouse in their absence. He had no family of his own and had come to Moominvalley in search of one; naturally, she was more than content to slide into her old self as easily as the slippers she'd left behind at her bed, and so Toft was taken in.

Moomintroll had heard this from Mamma later that night, because the boy would only speak to her. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Moomintroll got the feeling that this child had took aginst him somehow despite never having met before. He wasn't unkind - he was rather well-mannered and timid - but the way he stared out from his own mother's side like a wild little animal sent him uneasy.

He'd soon forgotten his worries when the palm wine was passed around. Every beast eagerly held out their bark mugs and cheered (even Toft, who much to his shock and delight was allowed a nip). The moomins and their extended family raised a drink in thought to Little My and the rest of their friends. Then, as the midnight sun rested itself on the hills of the valley, everyone made themselves a little bed in the flowers, or in their picnic blankets, and went to sleep.

Moomintroll was so enthralled by the homecoming and wine the night before, that he hadn't stopped to notice the overgrown patch down by the river where the tent always sat. He'd kept an eye out over the tops of the crowd for sight of bright green and had seen nothing, but hadn't thought anything of it. Snufkin wasn't fond of loud gatherings these days. But there it was, not a single sign of living over spring.

There was no bedroll in any of the rooms of the house, or anyone at the fishing spots around the valley, either. And there wasn't any need to panic. There would be something - a whiff of raspberry in the air, as that was a Sunday; a trail of rose-hips that would walk them away somewhere secret. Something that would tell him where Snufkin had gone.

He'd gotten his answer in the form of a letter. Two, in fact. One being down at the bottom of the postbox, covered by many other unopened envelopes.

Moomintroll tossed the spring wishes and summer gifts aside and frantically tore open the slip of the first, smoothing out the folded paper. Nothing out of the ordinary inside: sleep well, I'll see you in April, we'll talk again in the spring - but the second was different.

It _was_ a letter, for one. He'd found it by chance some hours later in his bedroom when he'd lifted up the eiderdown, pressed between the frame and the mattress. Snufkin never really wrote letters as they typically were. They were almost like postcards, except from before you went away, with a wink and a smile and funny little drawings on them. This had no drawings, and there was certainly no smile.

His words covered the front and the back in large, hectic writing. Moomintroll's stomach dropped lower with each sentence that unfurled from the tiny square of the page.

Snufkin was here. In the winter. He'd come to the house, and of course, they were gone. It was with a gutting lurch that turned the summer air cold that Moomintroll realised he hadn't told him. Things had been such a rush: Pappa's feverish need for adventure, the luggage, the worry, he hadn't thought. He just hadn't thought.

'You fool,' he'd said. Nobody had heard him. Right then he was filled with the need to shred that letter between his claws and let the wind take it off. But he hadn't. Instead, and he wasn't sure why, Moomintroll folded them again quite neatly and placed both inside the postbox, as though he hadn't opened them at all. Perhaps they would rot there. 'You're a damned fool.'

 _I've waited for him_ , he thought over and over; why couldn't he just wait for me? Just a little longer? He'd have met him, and then he wouldn't be here, with Snufkin Protector-of-all-small-beasts knows where, reading his last written letter.

Moomintroll had sprinted downstairs in such a terrible state, wondering desperately where to begin. He felt such a horrible pain boring down through his chest and barely caught his breath as he explained what had happened.

Mamma coaxed from Toft that he'd stopped at the house once, first warm day of Spring, same as always. He'd said a 'hullo'; Toft said hullo, too. He told them about how Snufkin insisted on cooking up cuts of pork and whatever vegetables he could find every night for the both of them, until Toft started to hide in the stove out of frustration, and how awful that was because the Ancestor wouldn't budge and his thick fur would prickle him. Then one day he'd left again quietly, and that was the last of it.

Moomintroll asked about the valley. No one had seen Snufkin since May. Gaffsie had spotted his "frightful old hat" travelling back where he came, south-bound, with his tent roll and knapsack bundled together. The wound deepened. They'd arrived a month too late.

Even so, Moomintroll scoured the tops of the valley, looking for any sign of that hat with a crown or a feather in it, a shock of red hair in the landscape. There was nothing. If there was once heelprints or knocked-out tobacco, they'd melted away in the rains by now. Who knew how much ground he'd covered through June.

That night, with little else to do, Moomintroll went out and collected seven flowers - four from the meadow and three from the garden, because it seemed right. He'd pressed them underneath his own knapsack by the oak tree where he'd slept out of doors in the twilight. It wasn't a pillow, but it was as good as. The spark of lingering midsummer magic seemed to surround him like embers; he pleaded for anything to come. Then he'd closed his eyes, and dreamt that his legs were entangled in seaweed.

It was all a bit fuzzy. He knew that he'd dived from the landing stage into the spot where the Adventure was tied, because he felt like hunting for pearls. A merman with unusually short hair who looked very much a like sea-snail had beckoned him to come, but now he was stuck, and the man wouldn't help him.

It crawled along his body like streaming blood until his chest was cocooned in it. There was more to fight every time his paws broke free.  
He yanked wildly at the seaweed and the merman rose with it, laughing. They were suspended nose-to-nose in the water, yet no matter how far he grasped out at the creature, he was never close enough to grab.

Moomintroll shook the red fronds in his paws in anger, but the laughter went on - though his face, whenever it felt like appearing again, was frowning. The stems receded deeper into his ribs like barbed wire. There was nothing else for it. Moomintroll opened his mouth.

He awakened immediately, a single large leaf twirling down from his snout and onto the grass. Moomintroll sat up, absently loosening the strap of the bag that had tied around his ankle. Then he stayed for a while at the base of the tree and let himself cry.

~ ✾ ~

Moomintroll coasted through the remainder of that summer in a sort of wavering stupor. He'd speak when spoken to, he helped around the house, and sometimes he'd even managed to forget. It would return to him, though. From the square that stared him dead in the face from the drawing-room window, looking no different to the rest of the grass, so natural and wrong. He was angry, almost, that the clover was content to eat up his space so quickly, as if to tell him, "it won't be needed anymore".

Other things changed. There were signs that went up - tiny ones, name-markers, that sort of thing - in slight hesitation, at first. Then the bigger ones came, the notices, encroaching on once off-limits territory. One night, Moomintroll sneaked from his room down the ladder and bashed them to splinters. He'd just finished with " **NO** Fishing" when the Hemulens got there, chewing their pipe-stems and tapping their feet.

It took some convincing, from Mamma (who'd been called to the commotion) and the Inspector himself, but nothing did come of it in the end. A sensitive case, it was. Moomintroll wanted his body to split and be ground into the floor like the signs had, the embarrassment of it all. And the way Toft had looked at him when they walked along home. Mamma kept kind and squeezed his paw all the way. He didn't want her to be. Why couldn't she yell and show that he was behaving stupidly? Placation made the heartache all the more real.

Afterwards, Moomintroll shut everyone out for a spell. Who was there left to cry to? Not Snufkin.

Little My was still gone. The new boy in his house had warmed to him a little (probably at his mother's advice), but he was a child, sensitive enough to boot, and he didn't seem to care about Snufkin at all.

Snorkmaiden was a trusted friend, but she had moved out from the valley some time ago, now, and letter-writing wouldn't do for something like this. She _was_ fond of Snufkin; why upset her good life with something she wasn't there to do anything about. He didn't want to think of letters, anyway.

Sniff was far too busy with newlywed life with a nice young tulippen to be interested, and were due to up sticks to the East to attend business school together that autumn. This, of course, was old news to everyone but the moomins. They'd have been invited along to their wedding ("just a hurried affair, really", Sniff had said tactfully), only for the post not reaching that far. If only it had.

 _If, if_ , his mind spiralled with 'ifs'. If he hadn't, if he had, if he'd said. Moomintroll was tired of not taking action and watching the others make their decisions without him.

He'd realised for the first time just how far everybody around him had grown. Suddenly everything in his bedroom had looked different. It was like he'd returned home a giant; his books and his bed were fit for a dollhouse, the ladder he'd climbed was just silly old logs to play pretend with. Even the ceiling seemed to be closing in on him. Everyone else had gone on with their own lives. Perhaps it was time that he did so himself.

For as long as he was on that island he'd wanted nothing more than to see the familiar sight of Moominvalley. Now he wanted nothing more than to leave it. But that would mean to leave his mother, so soon after they'd travelled home together. After Pappa and My had already gone, too.

Moomintroll wasn't sure how to ask that of her, so it came as good fortune when, on a cool afternoon on the cusp of autumn, while Toft was away picking boletes in the wood, Mamma had paused in tying the herbs out to dry across the veranda and asked what he thought would be best.

Moomintroll's fingers had stilled on the twine. They hadn't spoken about it since. She'd quietly brought the letters inside so that they wouldn't grow mold in the postbox, but the envelopes remained unopened. Yet his thoughts must have shown. Mothers know, he supposed, and Moomintroll - though he would never admit so - wasn't exactly a master of subtlety. 

Mamma hung up the last of the parsley and wiped her paws down on her apron, then took hold of his own and looked into his eyes.

'It's not forever,' he'd said instantly. Moomintroll felt the words burn in his mouth as if he'd heard his father's voice instead.

'My dearest,' she began, 'if that's what you want, please don't let me keep you. And when you want to come back, I'll always be here. Just promise me that you'll write, and that you'll be happy.'

He couldn't promise it all, but Moomintroll nodded anyway, as he hugged deeper into the warmth of her fur.

Toft wandered in just a few moments later and proudly displayed his basket of harvests to Mamma, who patted his soft head and lead them into the kitchen, reaching down to the cupboards to pass him a biscuit. He'd smiled at him - a true smile, and split it in half. Even if Toft's piece was just a bit bigger, Moomintroll accepted. He'd felt a little better in the knowledge she wasn't alone.

So, at first light the next day, the boat took to the waters once again - and there it had stayed for more than a year, with a single moomin onboard carried along by the current, and beast with wings who glowed like lightning following after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u clefairytea and boorishbint on tumblr for giving me the idea that sniff goes off and gets randomly married very good content.
> 
> no-bf snufkin after failing to parent toft multiple times: https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.761708630.5460/flat,800x800,075,f.u2.jpg


End file.
